Mystery Inc.: Ghost Hunters or Racial Profilers?

               What better way to reference distinct medieval racism than to relate it to Mystery Incorporated’s questionable mysteries. Monmouth presented a mythhistory that elaborated Britain’s transformation from an aspiring independent nation to a leader constantly expressing their supremacy over the other races in Europe. The original Scooby Doo series showed similarity to that sort of racism by separating the monsters from their realm. The specific episode, “A Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts,” showed the best modern interpretation that Monmouth expressed in his mythhistory. The series’ portrayal of monsters has parallels with Monmouth’s interpretation of races during the medieval period.

               In “A Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts,” the Mystery Gang came across a mysterious castle and decided to investigate the multiple sightings of monsters haunting the grounds despite the gypsy’s warning. They came across a werewolf, Count Dracula, and Frankenstein’s monster. All very different monsters of the different origin inspirations, however, the villain that portrayed these monsters was one person, Big Bob Oakley. When Brutus claimed Britain, he was appalled when Caesar wanted Britons to pay homage even though they are derived from the same lineage. As Monmouth’s mythhistory progressed, Britain started to transform into Rome’s image by racially separating themselves from the rest of Europe. Scooby Doo showed that through separating the monsters from the accepted realm of society; however, the show revealed that the monsters were all concocted by the same individual. That brings back the idea that racially different people are not actually that different.

               The other parallel between Monmouth’s retelling and Scooby Doo is the supremacy portrayal. Britain racially described the different races: Picts, Scots, and Saxons as being inferior and weaker. It can be seen by how Britain rose as a prominent entity by brutally defeating all the invading armies. Monmouth also grouped the other races as inferior by Christianizing Britain and making the other races follow a pagan faith. Sectioning off the different races into one group can be seen through Scooby Doo’s monsters. The monsters were portrayed as these terrifying beings because the Mystery Gang was always trying to evade them. The show also alluded to the idea of supremacy by having the monster fall into the elaborate traps designed by the Mystery Gang, which expressed the monsters’ intelligence inferiority. Shaggy and Scooby are prime examples of separating the monsters from society because they exacerbated the monsters’ terrifying images by expressing their fear in every encounter with the monsters. Even though the monsters were distinctly different, the series grouped them off from society by making the protagonists white. The homogeneous grouping of monsters is directly related to Britain’s depiction of the other races by creating separation and labeling them as inferior.

                In Monmouth’s mythhistory, the Britons racially discriminated the other kingdoms by grouping them as inferior pagans. In Scooby Doo’s “A Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts,” the Mystery Gang racially grouped the monsters as one category even though the monsters were distinguishable. The parallels both revealed that the races discriminated upon were actually not that different from the Britons and the Mystery Gang. In the case of the Britons, the other races were kingdoms described as being not that physically different, besides the subtle features from the Britons, other than geographical location, while the monsters in Scooby Doo ended up being Big Bob Oakley, a human like the Mystery Gang.